The acclaimed author of A Prayer for the Dying brings all his narrative gifts to bear on this gripping account of tragedy and heroism-the great Hartford circus fire of 1944. Halfway through a midsummer afternoon performance, Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus's big top caught fire. The tent had been waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin... more...

Arthur Parkinson is fourteen during the dreary winter of 1974, experiencing the confusing pangs of adolescence and the pain of his parents' divorce. His world is shattered further by the sudden and violent death of Annie Marchand, his beloved former baby-sitter. Narrated by the adult Arthur, who continues to be haunted by memories, the story of a... more...

A major new novel by the award-winning author recently named by Granta as one of America's best young writers.Set at a remote beachfront cottage in the Hamptons one summer during the Second World War, A World Away follows the fortunes of the Langer family, whose oldest son, Rennie, is missing in action in the Pacific theater. As we are soon aware,... more...

A ghost story that begins in everday tragedy, from a distinctly American master of both forms: a "scary, sad, funny . . . mesmerizing read" (Stephen King) At Midnight on Halloween in a cloistered New England suburb, a car carrying five teenagers leaves a winding road and slams into a tree, killing three of them. One escapes unharmed, another... more...

From a writer who reveals 'the plainness of everyday life with straightforward lyricism' ( The New York Times Book Review ), the story of one remarkable, average woman. On a clear winter night in upstate New York, two young men break in to a house they believe is empty. It isn't, and within minutes an old woman is dead and the house is in flames.... more...

New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year Set in Friendship, Wisconsin, just after the Civil War, A Prayer for the Dying tells of a horrible epidemic that is suddenly and gruesomely killing the town's residents and setting off a terrifying paranoia. Jacob Hansen, Friendship's sheriff, undertaker, and pastor, is soon overwhelmed... more...

West of Sunset ?[The] grim yet undeniably fascinating last act of Fitzgerald?s life is the subject of Stewart O?Nan?s gorgeous new novel. . . West of Sunset is a pretty fine Hollywood novel, too, but it?s an even finer novel about a great writer?s determination to keep trying to do his best work.??Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post ?A mesmerizing... more...

Our contemporary master Stewart O'Nan - the king of the quotidian - has changed his brush stroke and given us a picture of another American master, F. Scott Fitzgerald, in the last years of his life. This is an amazing book, by one great writer about another, just an amazement.' --Elizabeth Strout, author of Olive Kitteridge more...

From the author of Last Night at the Lobster , a moving vision of love and family. A sequel to the bestselling, much-beloved Wish You Were Here , Stewart O'Nan's intimate new novel follows Emily Maxwell, a widow whose grown children have long moved away. She dreams of vists by her grandchildren while mourning the turnover of her quiet Pittsburgh... more...

Returning again to the theme of working-class people and their wrenching concerns, Songs for the Missing begins with the suspenseful pace of a thriller, following an Ohio community?s efforts to locate a young woman who has gone missing. It soon deepens into an affecting portrait of a family trying desperately to hold onto itself and the memory of... more...